Who pays for the AI boom? Texas communities are asking tough questions

“Hey, what do you think of the data centre that’s coming up right across the street from here? I see a lot of construction happening around us all the time,” I ask my colleague Kevin, sounding innocent and naïve, for my Swedish friends had warned me — when I was moving to the U.S. earlier this year — not to touch politics or any sensitive topic at the workplace in America.

Instead, talk about family, they had recommended. I didn’t know where data centres fell on that spectrum. Kevin stiffens.

We are having lunch. He carefully places his fork down and looks past me through the window, where a dusty haze from the construction is floating in the hot Texan air, and starts talking softly.